Paper and Shadows

 

 

Right now in class we are working on our final project. We are making, well, kind of paper lanterns, kind of lamp shades, kinda...sorta...   *ehhem* We are working with paper and cutting it and creating shadows. It's pretty interesting, a little frustrating at times, but fun.

When we started just playing with paper I made my designs starting with paper airplane folds, cootie catchers and making snowflakes. Now I've decided to just work with the snowflake idea but I've kind of turned them into lanterns. I'm thinking it will hang from the lightbulb...but I'm still not sure, it could just sit on the floor or table. 

The design I've been working with has been almost tribal like, or like Indian art with a lot of geometric shapes. Then I started doing just slits in paper that was similar to a print I did in my fundamentals of fabrics class last semester. It's a lot of diamonds and just slits in paper that create diamonds, lines patterns and mountain designs. 

My professor and I started messing around with making some of the slits fold and giving my paper a 2D and 3D effect. And I really like it.

Here are some photos of some of the models I've done.

 

Dribble

For our latest class project we had a small group and constructed words to represent what they were and be an environment that made sense with the word. My group got the word "dribble." The first thing that came to my mind is, "Hey, we're a basketball school. Let's go with basketball dribble," and my group members thought the same thing.

 So we constructed our word in our school colors of crimson and blue and made the dot of the eye a basketball. We decided to put our letters in front of Phog Allen in front of Allen Fieldhouse, and boy was it glorious. I had a lot of fun taking pictures of our word in the environment and later on one of my group members, Amy, and I decided to take pictures with the word in different areas inside the Fieldhouse. So here are some photos of our dribbling journey.

"That's the new me"

Don Norman talked about the "3 ways good design makes you happy" on TED Talks and happily discussed his ideas on how it all works.

Visceral was his first way of happy design. He explained this by saying that, in design, we express this by using certain fonts or using red to portray something that's hot. Or having a nice car because you love the design but in reality it needs a lot of upkeep.

Behavioral was his second idea for happy design. It's sub-conscience, like most things we do in a day. It's about feeling in control of something, like a knife he had shown at the beginning of his lecture, it's designed perfectly to make everything you use it for easy and with almost no effort.

Lastly, he talked about reflective. It's sub conscientiously saying that you like the attention. You want to have the Hummer rather than a simple Taurus. You want to go for what's bold, not what's safe.

His whole lecture is saying, we should be happy with design; being positive helps to generate great design.

Another Favorite Artist

 

So I talked before about one of my favorite artist, Tim Burton, now I would like to tell you about one of my other favorite artist, Tang Yau Hoong.

He likes to use negative space in a creative way and makes some pretty awesome stuff. Some of it is funny illustrations, others are more meaningful. I'm just going to let his art speak for itself. Below, and above, are just a few of my favorites. Enjoy.

Visit tangyauhoong.com for more of his work.

My Favorite Artist

It all goes back to being a little kid at my babysitters watching a movie her daughter put on TV, it was The Nightmare Before Christmas; I fell in love with the movie the first time I watched it.

Tim Burton is my favorite artist, he produced my, still, favorite movie, The Nightmare Before Christmas, and I have fallen in love with everything he creates. I swear the man is a genius with a pencil. I don't know if it's the craziness of his drawings and obscure ways he creates characters, but something about it all just makes me smile and inspires me to be a better artist.

He may do a lot of creepy drawings and characters, but they are amazing, to me at least. A couple of my favorite characters he created in NBC are the trick-or-treaters, Lock, Shock and Barrel. I love that they are always getting into trouble and are straight up mischievous. 

Other great movies I love that he's done are Beetlejuice, Edward Scissorhands, Big Fish, Corpse Bride, Sweeney Todd, and of course his recreation of one of my other favorite movies Alice in Wonderland. The Mad Hatter is my favorite character and I love how Johnny Depp brought him to life.

The style Burton uses with his characters he creates are very sketchy and odd, I like to try and think up my own or recreate them. I had a project at my community college where we designed a short story book series and had to design the covers. I decided to keep things sketchy and used my inner Tim Burton to create my covers. I like the way my drawings turned out and they related to the authors well.

Tim Burton will always be my favorite artist, with his unique outlook on things and creative style. 

The Grid

In class today we discussed "the grid" we should use when designing. It took me back to my visual storytelling class I had took last semester; it was all about layout and design. I started thinking more and realized all of the areas design I am interested in and use and how they all use the same grid, everything does really.

It's basic really, and you can usually do it without realizing it. Unless you're just off when it comes to anything design related then it should come pretty easy.

I use it a lot in my photography, or at least a type of grid. The rule of thirds is used a lot by photographers to bring something out in a photo and to refrain from doing the norm. In the photo below, a friends daughter who I absolutely adore, I used rule of thirds putting her head at one intersection of the points and then letting her body curve down and lead you to the other end/corner of the photo where I then placed my logo. I love this photo for multiple reasons, but one thing I love is the rule of thirds and I love using it in just about every photo I take. I don't like things just centered, it's too boring, unless you are using it for a reason, to show emotion or display a particular image for the audience.

Whether you realize it or not, in any aspect of design, we all use a grid, some even make them and they can create beautiful images.

P.S. Click on the photo to check out my website and see more of my photography :)

Reaction to Dieter Rams: 10 Principles of Good Design

   I see the different Braun items the first word that comes to mind is sleek. Nothing is over done or complicated; it's simple. That's exactly how Dieter Rams wants things and I agree, to an extent. 

   When he said "having small touches of color makes it more colorful than having the whole thing in color," I initially thought, I like color and bright colorful things, why get rid of that? It's stylish and fun! But then I looked at his products and I understood. He talked about a calculator they had and how the only button that is a bright, different color is the equal sign because that is the purpose of the calculator, you are trying to get an answer. That bright yellow button gives you your answer.

   I think Rams innovative ideas and ways of thinking for design are amazing. They are simple but technical. Objects we always use should be simplistic and handy, why complicate things? Yes, having your own unique style on things is fun and makes you stand out of the crowd. But when you can have something that is modern and sleek that is still stylish but honest and innovative, why mess with it?